RedHat has announced that future versions of their very popular Linux Distribution will include Netscape's Navigator web browser. It's a lot to think about, what with the DOJ/MS issues with browser bundling, and the recent netscape bombshell. One thing is for certain though, having Netscape preinstalled for RedHat users is very nice for the newbies that Linux is winning over every day courtesy of all the positive press it's been getting.

Yet another ground breaking announcement this week. After the exciting news from the Govt about our favorite court case and the publicity bonanza for netscape doing "right thing" by handing out the source Navigator, Linus blows them all away with the latest kernel patch. Analysts are stunned. "Grab it" they say. And we listen.

I know everyone has been talking about the Linux Expo coming up in may, but Greg Hankins asked me to plug the Atlanta Linux Showcase as well. Bruce mentioned it in passing in his debian-announce message. The showcase runs from Oct 23 to 24 in Atlanta. Sounds cool...

debian-announce just sent out a message saying that Bruce Perens will be speaking at the LinuxExpo. In addition to LinuxExpo, Debian hopefully will be at The Atlanta Linux Showcase, International Linux Kongress, and the SANE conference.

As a side note, the message also mentioned that the Berlin is joining up with Software in the Public Interest (Debian's Corporation).

Linus has released kernel 2.1.80. But this isn't just any ordinary kernel- for the first time in a Linux kernel, the ARM architecture is supported. Newton Linux might not be too far off if a dedicated programmer has some motivation.

I sure hope you know where to get it by now.

Prasanth Kumar sent us this MicroTimes article which lists the top 100 people of 97 (I guess anyway) and lo and behold, there is Linus, with yet another mysterious reference to whatever-the-heck-transmeta reference. Linus, if you read this, send me email and tell me what you do! *big smile*

The latest in a virtual tidal wave of amazing pro linux mainstream news articles can be found here. It's just a really short little "Redhat is cool" thing, but they did list it first- above Apple, Be and OS/2. It amazes me that in the last year Linux has gone from something that nobody understands, to something that anyone who keeps up with technology has to know about.

Thank Adrian Likins for letting us know that The LinuxExpo Website has been updated. They now list costs, dates, events and lot's of other information. The dates don't overlap any of my classes, so there is a very good chance that I'll be there. Hope to see ya.

meese wrote in to tell me that RHAD is holding a Screen Saver contest. Winners will be decided by votes at the Linux Expo, and the prizes will be various video cards (Winner gets a 3dfx). I wish I had time to enter this one.

Hitchhiker wrote in to say that a couple of nasty new holes have surfaced recently in the kernel. Apparently both the filesystem code and memory allocation code has serious holes. Don't worry- 2.0.34 will be out soon with fixes for both. Read this one for some better info.

Tucols has opened its doors. The Ultimate Collection of Linux Software (Com'on, we could have had a better name guys! Wasn't tucows enough?) thanks to Kenneth Sarmaat for letting us know.

Well the only reason I ever watch the super bowl is to see the fantastic commercials, and this year those ads have a bonus. The RedHat Linux based Alpha Render Farm that Digital Domain built up for rendering scenes in Titanic will apparently be use to render 10 commercials for Super Sunday. Hope they post mpegs or something so I can see them. Follow the link below to read the official RedHat press release.

Thanks to the several of you who wrote in to let me know that Linus has released the 2.1.79 kernel- an over 700k patch. Wowsers. Grab it from the usual spots.

Evelyn Mitchell sent us this story where you can read about slowdowns in Client OS sales. According to the article, Microsoft still controls 87% of the operating systems sold last year. The gem though is the comments about IS managers evaluating free OS's like Linux. Could 98 really be the year Linux breaks into the main stream corporate world in a big way?

This story was sent to me by 11 people, but vertigo was the first. It has a lot more of the same information about the Bonk/Boink attack, but more importantly is the the comments at the end from Jiva DeVoe, the primary source for the article. His solution to the security hole is to run Linux. It then mentions how much better Free Software is for security. It gave me warm fuzzies.

Ryan Morgan wrote in to tell us that a new version of MindsEye- a 3d modeller for *nix was released this morning. There are binaries available if you want 'em. Check out their web site and their ftp site if you want to download them. I've never tried this program, but I may give it a whirl this weekend.

Matthew Miller has the following to say "Byte magazine has a nice article on the non-death of Unix in the January '98 issue Reseller section. Take a look. The article says really nice things about Linux, too: ("Linux is what's bringing new hope to the Unix community.")."

here is a review of RedHat 5 compared with NT. As an intelligent observer of Slashdot might have already guessed, this article, like so many others shows which OS is superior. Thanks to Marcelo Magallon for sending this our way.

Another cameo appearance of Linux in a mainstream mag comes to us from Amos Shapira. He sent in an article at inforworld about NT 5.0's hefty system requirements, and how Linux will "beat the living daylights out of it" on a system with less than 64 megs of RAM. Flattery like that is just the kinda publicity we like to hear.

The original is back with a new issue. The Linux Gazette has out its January 98 issue which features a ton of cool stuff. Dave Finton pointed me to the Gnome/KDE article in this issue which is an excellent comparison of the 2 major contenders in the desktop Widget Wars which will significantly change our desktops in the years ahead.